Esther Duflo is one of those people who are taken seriously by the sort of people who eat up TED talks with a silver spoon. Her big number is how to help people in the Third World up from poverty, which is a surprisingly profitable branch of economics when you consider the sheer number of NGOs and billionaires interested in getting into the aid business. But there’s one particular billionaire at Duflo’s back. Abdul Latif Jameel. Esther Duflo is one of the co-founders of the Poverty Action Lab at MIT, more commonly known as J-PAL for the father of Abdul...

Investigators are trying to determine whether a San Diego sailor passed Navy secrets about security weaknesses and warship movements to a British man accused of having terrorist links, according to court documents unsealed yesterday. E-mail messages from the unnamed sailor, sent in late 2000 and 2001 before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, were found in December in computer files belonging to Babar Ahmad, who was detained Wednesday in London, according to the 31-page arrest affidavit. The computer files contained details about security arrangements and movements of the San Diego-based Constellation carrier battle group, which included the destroyer Benfold, on which...

CROMWELL, Conn. -- A Connecticut nuclear engineer is under investigation in a federal terrorism probe, but denies allegations he offered support to a militant Islamic Web site and said he's being targeted because he is Muslim. Syed R. Maswood, 41, confirmed that he is the unnamed Connecticut resident mentioned last week in a federal affidavit charging a British national with supporting terrorism. Federal agents raided Maswood's home March 17, seizing computer equipment and financial records, he said. Investigators discovered his e-mail address among files used to maintain a Web site that funneled money and equipment to terrorists, according to the...

The U.S. government on Tuesday placed on its official list of terrorist supporters a wealthy Saudi Arabian businessman who established a charity in the Chicago area to help fund Muslim fighters in some of the world's most volatile areas. The Treasury Department said Adel Batterjee "has ranked as one of the world's foremost terrorist financiers" by helping bankroll Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. The department froze his U.S. assets and said it would ask the United Nations to require that other countries do the same. "A worldwide asset freeze, including in his home country of Saudi Arabia, will deal...

<p>CHICAGO (AP) -- Federal prosecutors accused a Syrian-born American of once leading a Muslim charity that the Treasury Department calls a terrorist group, and said he tried to help Osama bin Laden get a nuclear weapon.</p>
<p>The government said Mohamed Loay Bayazid was president of the suburban Chicago-based Benevolence International Foundation in 1994, about the same time he is accused of trying to get uranium for al-Qaida.</p>

JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia -- Muslim forces were gathering near a small town in Bosnia, and commanders were moving fighters to the front. The man in charge wanted the very best soldiers available, so he handpicked six of his favorites and ordered them to the area immediately. The mission was indisputably military, but the man calling the shots was not a captain with the army or a general back at command headquarters. He was the person helping finance the battle: Adel Batterjee, a wealthy Saudi businessman aiding the operation 2,000 miles away from his home in Saudi Arabia. This was not...